Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to “return home”

News@lemmy.world – 128 points – 2 months ago

Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’ | CNN

The situation at Columbia has even drawn the attention of the White House, joining local leaders in urging calm.

“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement shared with CNN on Sunday.

Demanding a ceasefire is not equal to antisemitism. These dumbass politicians can’t fucking figure that out.

It's crazy because all these people saying that "genocide is bad" is antisemitic are really saying that Jews have a genetic predisposition toward commiting genocide, which is actually really fucking antisemitic.

In case anyone's still unclear:

Disliking someone because they are Jewish is antisemitic.

Disliking someone because they are commiting genocide is actually a good thing.

Oh, they know. They just don't care.

It's antizionism, which zionists try their best to conflait with antisemitism because they need a shield for their shitty actions.

Sooo... where's the antisemitism these liberal pundits are all getting hysterical about and wants to pretend poses some kind of "antisemitic" threat to Jewish people at this university?

Oh, right... here it is.

“Columbia students organizing in solidarity with Palestine – including Jewish students – have faced harassment, doxxing, and now arrest by the NYPD. These are the main threats to the safety of Jewish Columbia students,” Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a PhD student, told CNN.

Ie, all the antisemitism is coming from the usual sources - the US political establishment, it's pet media and it's goon squads.

The antisemitism is coming from inside the house

It always has... antisemitism is a western invention.

Considering Judaism is a western religion, no duh?

Right, Judaism is so "western" that it existed long before the west existed. Much "western."

I'd say I'm sorry that obvious historical fact disturbs so many liberals - but I won't. Because I'm not.

I'm sorry your hot take is what here exactly? Antisemitism didn't exist before the cultural concept of 'the west'? Because that's just patently false

You do understand that we can track where antisemitism comes from, right? Even all the way past the Spanish Reconquista and the subsequent instututionalization of the very first race laws?

White supremacism and antisemitism is as fundamental to "western civilization" as... well - I guess there really isn't anything else to "western civilization," is there? And that includes the liberalism that's overflowing here on lemmy.world.

I never said the west didnt/doesn't practice antisemitism, but to call a "Western invention" is patently false. And just sprinkling "liberalism" throughout your comments doesn't make you sound like an enlightened leftist, it makes you sound uneducated. You can't even identify it and you're just calling people liberals left and right lmao. How can Judaism simultaneously both predate the West and antisemitism be invented by the west? Antisemitism has existed since the beginning, literally in their own books.

Wanna take a wild guess who invented the term "Semitic." liberal?

1879 statute of the Antisemitic League, the organization which first popularized the term.

You were saying, liberal?

How can Judaism simultaneously both predate the West and antisemitism be invented by the west?

You do realize that people existed in Africa before "western civilization" invented "race science", right?

Please take a moment to appreciate just how garbage your understanding of history really is. You know what they say - acknowledging your condition is the first step toward recovery.

We're not talking about race science we're talking about hatred for Jews existing long before the concept of 'the west'. You're either willfully ignorant of non Western countries xenophobia or you're an apologist. Sounds like a pretty liberal stance to me, liberal.

we’re talking about hatred for Jews existing long before

PThen you should have no problem proving it, should you?

You’re either willfully ignorant of non Western countries xenophobia

Yeah... attempting to excuse the west's invention of white supremacism and antisemitism by pretending "everybody else was doing it, too" is about as ahistorical and apologetic as it gets, lib.

So yes, you are actively pushing propaganda. Goodbye

PThen you should have no problem proving it, should you?

Yeah it was actually rather easy, just one Google search away to know you're spouting bullshit.

The first clear examples of anti-Jewish sentiment can be traced back to Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE. Alexandrian Jewry were the largest Jewish community in the world and the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was produced there. Manetho, an Egyptian priest and historian of that time, wrote scathingly of the Jews and his themes are repeated in the works of Chaeremon, Lysimachus, Poseidonius, Apollonius Molon, and in Apion and Tacitus.

Source: The History of Antisemitism, Classical Period (Wikipedia)

Yeah... attempting to excuse the west's invention of white supremacism

I don't think I saw the commenter you're replying to ever try to excuse Western White Supremacism, or say they didn't invent it. I think they were merely pointing out that there's been anti-jewish hatred for far longer than there's been a "West".

4 more...

"... calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous" ...

Yeah, cool bro. True, but also, nothing in this article suggests that's what's actually happening.

While a lot of hand-wringing was done about how bad it would be if people did harassment or violence, not one single solitary scrap of a story about someone actually being targeted in that way emerged from the reading. (Edit: Correction: Precisely one single solitary scrap of a story implying violence occurred in the article, see the end of this comment) Despite this, of course, the brownshirts are being called in to remove protestors and silence the extremely loud criticism of Israel's recent actions.

A video taken on the university’s campus Saturday night also shows a small group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting, “F**k Israel. Israel is a b*tch,” while waving the Palestinian flag.

Does not constitute a threat, violence, or harassment. A protected first-amendment expression of opinion about Israel's bitchiness.

... videos circulated showing a man outside the university saying, “Never forget the seventh of October,” and “that will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, but 10,000 times!”

And he's right, too. It will keep happening while Israel continues to act like a bitch.

Another student, Noah Lederman, told CNN he was “terrified, angry, upset, and horrified that the university failed to take action.” Lederman said he had been accosted in early February and had asked the university for remote learning options. “What’s happening on campus is blatantly antisemitic,” he added.

You were spoken to in a challenging and/or aggressive way? On a college campus? Oh you poor thing. I feel so sad- That must have been really hard for you.

“This is a time of genuine discomfort and even fear for many of us on campus,” the Hillel said...

Cool bro. I'm so sorry you're uncomfortable. For some reason though, when you say the words 'discomfort' and 'fear' I get a persistent mental image of exploded children. And crocodiles for some reason? Crying crocodiles.

He contrasted the “pretty peaceful” environment on campus with the more energized demonstrations outside campus, referencing “deeply disheartening” incidents that took place Saturday night outside campus by people Emery said were not affiliated with the university. He added that some more observant Jewish friends of his had experienced harassment but that Jewish students should feel safe on campus.

Yeah, CNN, would you mind being more fucking specific? If there's Actual Violence occurring, that's the thing I want to know about. Until then, your framing contributes to a pretty specific narrative that doesn't seem to align with the facts you're reporting. Weird, that.

The double standard is that in this case, they say "calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous”, while in this case

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/business/harvard-doxxing-truck-israel-hamas-statement/index.html

no action was taken, and later Claudine Gay resigned. What's ironic though is that with the doxxing truck

The University’s Hillel, its Jewish student organization, condemned the billboard truck and attempts to intimidate signatories.

“Harvard Hillel strongly condemns any attempts to threaten and intimidate co-signatories of the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s statement, including the bus on campus displaying the names and faces of students affiliated with the groups who have signed it,” the organization said in a statement posted on its website.

The OP article is about antisemitism and it looks like Zionists use of Jews as human shields is working.

I do not envy Jewish students right now.

They have spent their life being told, like I was, from their parents and grandparents that if there is no Israel, the Holocaust would happen again and they personally would be put in a death camp.

At the same time, they see Israel's apartheid state and now the genocide it is committing.

Even though I have been very vocally against both of these things for many years, I still have to headcheck myself sometimes when seeing a rightful criticism of Israel just because I was told for 18 years of my life that Israel was the only thing stopping Nazis from rising up again and killing me.

Wow, that's a lot to confront. Way to be open to other perspectives.

Thanks. Oddly enough, these same parents and grandparents who taught me this also taught me to be open to other perspectives. They just had a huge blind spot.

I honestly don't blame my dad and grandparents. They lived in London during WWII, just waiting for the Nazis to invade and kill them. They were incredibly paranoid about it. But I didn't live through that, so I did not share their fear. My mom, who's American like I am, stays quiet about her opinions about Israel and I'm not going to push her on it.

I'm more worried about being thrown into a concentration camp by Trump than by any Palestinian. And not even necessarily because I'm Jewish.

Whoa a tent camp. Better return to their active war zone which tries to start world war 3 with Iran.

This is propaganda..